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The air was thick with silence. Jill sat by the fire with her knees drawn to her chest, her eyes half-lidded and unseeing. Torgal whined and nosed her arm. She smiled and stretched out her legs, scratching his ear as he rested his head on her lap. Her face drifted back to weariness.
It was the first time Clive had seen her — really seen her — since leaving for Rosalith. Her skin was dull in the firelight, drained of color and stained with ash and blood that was not all hers. The corners of her mouth sagged. Lines etched their way across her brow and shadows settled in the hollows under her eyes. Clive had never seen her so tired, so old, as when she sat beside him now. He hated himself for it.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I never should have-”
“Don’t.” Jill cut him off before he could finish. Torgal’s ears pricked at the edge in her voice. “Don’t”, she said again, gently this time. “It was my choice to come with you. I knew the risks. You couldn’t have stopped me.” She turned to look at him, her eyes resolute through their exhaustion. “I never would have let you face this alone.”
Clive sighed, resigned. “I know.” He couldn’t have stopped her. In truth, he hadn’t tried. He told himself it was because of her willfulness or the harsh necessity of their duty, and it was, but that wasn’t the whole of it. He needed her beside him. He needed her strength where he faltered. Her hand on his arm steadied him; her voice grounded him when grief and rage consumed him. He needed her for his weakness, and his wanting. She knew it. Shame burned within him, hotter and fiercer than any eikon’s flames.
“I never thought I’d make it this far, to be honest,” Jill said, her gaze distant once more. “I thought I would have fallen to the curse by now, if not to the sword.” She drew in a shaking breath. “I hoped that my death would mean something. That it would set my wrongs to right. I believed that was enough.”
Clive shifted his body toward hers, his brow furrowed. “And now?”
“Now I don’t know,” she replied with a choked laugh. “That day in Dhalmekia, when you bested me, I was ready to die,” she said. “I welcomed it. There was such relief in that darkness.” Her voice grew quiet. “But today, I was afraid.” She reached her hand to her neck as though she still felt the shadow of the executioner’s axe. The smell of blood lingered about her.
Clive covered her hand with his, her fingers icy against the warmth of his palm. “Is that so terrible, to fear death?”
“I suppose not,” Jill said with a hint of wryness. “But it is a heavy burden. To die is easy, but to live, to want…” her eyes met his, pleading and veiled with tears. Her voice broke. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Then don’t,” Clive said, struggling to temper his emotion. “You don’t have to.”
She smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. “Is it truly so simple?”
His eyes fell to her opposite hand where it rested on Torgal’s head. The skin on her wrist glinted in the darkness, barely visible beneath the cuff of her sleeve. A trick of the moonlight, Clive thought, yet his throat still tightened.
“Come on.” He gently squeezed her hand. “You should get some rest.” Jill nodded, rousing Torgal and folding the cast-off panels of her skirt into a makeshift pillow. The dog huffed and settled against her back as she lay down. Clive drew his cloak around her shoulders. He brushed the stray strands of hair from her face, fingertips grazing her cheek. Her skin was gritty from tears and dust.
In another world, another life, he would have given her everything this one had taken. She would smile without sadness and laugh without doubt. There would be no curse, no pain, no death. He’d fall asleep beside her each night, wrapped in the promise of tomorrow, and she would be the first thing he saw when he woke. Perhaps there was still a path to that future. He shut his eyes, sick and desperate with wanting.
Was this what Jill meant by the burden of living? To hold faith in a near impossible dream, to chase the faintest whisper of hope? Clive turned his head toward the sky. Metia winked from its perch in the heavens, vibrant and crimson beneath the waning moon. In that moment, it did not seem foolish to wish upon stars.